What exactly is the expose? Customer services stores pretend a cheery friendliness that only exists for profit? The merchandise isn't really unique, it's the presentation? They charge what the customers are willing to pay?

So...Peters wants corporate stores to be manned by drab, frowning employees who let you know they only want your cash. And he wants the ice cream thinner. And the price should be fixed at exacly 1% over the cost of production so there is a minimum profit, but no crazy excess.

Of course, Peters could have gone on a search for good ice cream, or a good ice cream store. He could have alerted readers where to find a treat. Instead he went down to his local chain and complained about the obvious. And then he presented us with something more or less identical to things we've read before, in a chummy, pseudo friendly style to seduce us, so that he sell his article and make a profit. Much like Marble Slab, no?

The author is on-target about Falwell, but some the verbal tricks here seemed to have been learned at his feet.

Take the assertion that

cable television, the perfect medium for someone as shallow as this man

This is surely a Falwellesque example of demonization. The statement doesn't even limit the statement to cable news but all cable. It’s all bad. All shallow. All propaganda. All hate. Come on. HBO? And what about C-SPAN?

We also get

Once the Ralph Reeds and Karl Roves took over the task of blending religion and politics, there was no room for Falwell.

Agree about Reeds, but though I dislike Rove he doesn’t blend religion and politics. And his warhawk attitude towards Iraq isn’t based on their religious beliefs.

There is even a manipulative use of theology

The Manichees, a Persian sect that for a time attracted the great Saint Augustine, adhered to a black-and-white reality in which evil was always in an endless struggle with the good.

Well, I suspect Wolfe would find Augustine’s religious beliefs themselves black and white. Augustine surely would have found this country as sinful as Falwell does, and been equally intolerant of birth control, pro-choice, and gay rights (Mother Theresa said there is more spiritual poverty in America than there ever was physical poverty in Calcutta; I think Augustine would have agreed). So the evocation of this great religious philosopher seems pretty much a rhetorical device.

And I think Augustine would agree with the concept of an ongoing struggle between good and evil on this planet since the time of the Fall. He'd disagree that they were equal forces, for eternity destined to battle. Good existed before evil, was stronger, and would obviously triumph, essentially had triumphed through Jesus' birth death and resurrection. All evil would be banished to hell at the end of time. But clearly he believed evil was present in the world and always a potential threat to man.

By clouding these issues, Wolfe has come up with a piece at times as shallow and misleading as Falwell's own assertions.

This is the trouble not just with trendy, desperate hipsters, but with curmudgeonly anti-hipsters as well: they have no clue as to the definition of "real." Starbucks uses real espresso, they use real milk (unless you ask for whatever alternative you choose), and it's a decent product. If you think the basic coffee is too bitter, go somewhere else. There are alternative coffee shops and independent coffee shops all over the place—yes, even in suburbs and small towns. But it's foolish to play some pseudo morality game about what gets to be labled "real" coffee, as if we're dealing with a mirage or the kind of orange juice not actually made from oranges.

I never knew that was part of the accusation—purple, yes, but because it represents pride? There isn't one color that represents gay pride. Gay pride is represented by the rainbow. Bigotry is ignorant.

He's still putting a riduculous moral judgement on a food chain. And the article isn't in response to hearing about an ice cream chain and trying it out. It's about getting tired of hearing about a chain he's long ago visited and been unimpressed by. It's a lame rant, not a review.